Crowds

In “Crowds”, the large video installation from 1997, Eva Koch has placed herself in the middle of the crowd of three major cities: Jerusalem, Bombay and Hong Kong, and allowed the camera to roll. The video images are projected onto three large walls, so that you are almost surrounded by them. The crowds pass by, and you stand here, detached, outside, with a growing feeling of dissolution. Suddenly something happens on one of the three huge projections. Some men step out of the crowd.

They are looking at you, examin you with friendly eyes, but they are also insistent and skeptical. You feel that you have been caught in the act, revealed in your unobtrusive voyeur position. They are confronting you, seeking contact. You are viewing the work, but now the work is looking back. You can’t escape. You are seeing and being seen. The camera shifts between mass and person. In the crowd the individual loses his individuality. The points are absorbed, become one large restless surface. The artist herself is part of the crowd. An anonymous face among all the others.